Schnees, Lies, and Politics
by Jezrianna2.0
Summary: A series of conversations about the Schnee family and their relations with the Faunus race. I have ideas for at least five chapters, and plan to add chapters when I get the next one written, hopefully once a week. Chapter Four features Blake and Weiss.
1. Schnees, Lies, and Politics

_For people who know me, but not RWBY, it's a web series from Rooster Teeth, and can be found on YouTube. I stumbled across it in the first part of 2014, and have really enjoyed it._

Chapter One: Schnees, Lies, and Politics

_In which Ruby and Velvet talk about the Schnee family._

Ruby Rose was walking through the library at Beacon Academy. She was looking for a book, in which she hoped to find the answer to a question that had troubled her since the day she'd arrived at the most prestigious school in all of Remnant.

Unfortunately, Ruby had little idea what sort of book she needed to look at, or where in the library she should be searching. The fifteen year old was the first to admit that, while she liked to read, she was not the most diligent student. If the book she was reading or the subject she was studying didn't involve weapons, the creatures of Grimm she was training to kill with weapons, or stories about Huntsmen and Huntresses using weapons to kill creatures of Grimm, Ruby had trouble getting interested.

"I suppose I should start at a catalogue terminal," she mused quietly, eyeing one of the holographic workstations spaced around the edge of the library's central atrium. The ones in Ruby's immediate vicinity were occupied, but a glance across the atrium showed several unoccupied ones... Velvet Scarlatina.

The name popped into Ruby's mind immediately she spied the older student's ears sticking up from behind a low set of shelves. About one in twenty Beacon students were Faunus, as opposed to Human. A few had tails, more had horns, while most, like Velvet, sported a set of animal-like ears in addition to their human-like ones. Velvet was the only Faunus at Beacon who had rabbit ears though, making her instantly recognizable even when those ears were all that could be seen of her.

Ruby hurried across the library. Velvet was sitting by herself at a table, a book in one hand and a pen in the other, taking notes as she read. As Ruby approached, Velvet's rabbit ears, which had been leaning back in a semi-relaxed position, suddenly snapped upright, and Velvet turned her head in Ruby's direction.

"Oh, hello Ruby," Velvet smiled, her ears lowering again when she saw the other girl.

"Hey Velvet," Ruby replied by way of a greeting. "Do you mind if I join you for a bit?"

"Not at all," Velvet answered, gesturing at the chair across the table from her. "Have a seat."

Ruby sat, and got right to the point. "I have a question, Velvet, and I hope maybe you can answer it for me."

Velvet sat up, a curious expression on her face. "What is it?"

"Well," Ruby began, "when I first got to Beacon I accidentally met two of my teammates before they were my teammates and...you know I'm partnered with Weiss Schnee, right?"

Velvet blinked at Ruby's sudden verbal swerve, but nodded.

"You should feel honored, Ruby. The Schnee's are great people."

It was Ruby's turn to blink. "Uh," she stammered. "Anyway, Blake Belladonna, my other teammate, apart from Weiss and my sister, she said the Schnee Dust Company had controversial labor forces and I was wondering if maybe you knew what she meant by that?"

Velvet blinked again. She didn't know Ruby very well, and wondered if the so-red-headed-her-hair-was-almost-black girl who'd been admitted into Beacon two years early always talked so fast.

"Well," Velvet said, with thoughtful slowness, "whether the Schnee labor force is controversial, and how it's controversial, depends on the personal politics of who you ask."

"Politics wha huh?" Ruby's perplexed expression matched the tone in her voice.

"You know that the Schnee Dust Company is one of the largest employers in all of Remnant, right?" Velvet said. Ruby nodded in agreement. The Schnee's had holdings on every continent, in every region, in nearly every land, nation, or kingdom.

"And that the majority, which is to say somewhat more than half, of their employees are Faunus," Velvet continued.

"Yes," Ruby agreed emphatically, "When Faunus are only twenty-five percent of the general population."

Velvet nodded in affirmation. "Some people - like the White Fang - say that disparity means the Schnee's are unfairly exploiting Faunus labor."

"What do other people say?" Ruby asked curiously.

"That the Schnee's are unfairly excluding Humans from high paying jobs."

"Wait," Ruby countered. "You mean the Schnees pay their Faunus workers well?"

"The Schnees pay all of their workers well," Velvet clarified. "Dust mining is dangerous. They have to pay well to get anyone to do it, and they treat Humans and Faunus exactly alike."

Ruby stared dumbfounded at the other girl. "How is that controversial?" she finally demanded.

"Well, sadly, there are still places in Remnant where the only decent paying job a Faunus can get is at a Schnee dust mine," Velvet explained. "But at the same time, in many of those places, a Schnee dust mine is also the only place a Human can get a decent paying job. So if the Schnee's preferentially hire Faunus..."

"...the Humans resent it, and not entirely unjustly so," Ruby finished the thought.

Ruby sat quietly for just a moment, thinking, then blurted, "The Schnee's don't hate Faunus?"

"No, no they don't," Velvet denied. "They hate the White Fang, the current Mister Schnee especially, and with good reason, if you ask me. Granted, the late Mister Schnee might not approve of the current Mister Schnee's...zeal...in the matter," Velvet hesitated, "but he'd approve of the cause. He did approve of the cause, in fact, because the war between the two began before he passed, when the White Fang killed his youngest son, the current Mister Schnee's brother, and Mistress Schnee's uncle."

"Mistress Schnee," Ruby repeated softly. "Wow, Velvet. You really admire the Schnees, don't you?"

Velvet nodded. "The White Fang...like to pretend it didn't happen." The Faunus girl's voice quavered ever so slightly. "They like to harp on how the Schnees owned Faunus slaves. Which is true. Faunus slavery was legal in many places before the Revolution, and the Schnees used Faunus slaves everywhere it was legal for them to do so."

"The White Fang don't like to hear that the Schnees treated their slaves better than some people treated their free workers." Velvet gave Ruby a hard look. "They say that's sugarcoating an inherently evil, brutally violent institution; that anyone who says so is a revisionist, or a racist, or both."

"Even when a Faunus says it?" Ruby asked, and Velvet nodded.

"I've been called a liar, a race traitor," she explained bitterly. "A pet. An animal cracker. Amongst other things. So was my grandfather, who actually was a slave, having been born into it, and who called the day the Schnees took over the mine where he'd been born the greatest day of his life. 'Like unto the Day of Jubilee' was how he always put it."

"What else don't the White Fang like to hear?" Ruby queried. Her knowledge of history was sketchy. She knew that Humans had lost the Faunus War, had been forced to give up their plan to confine all Faunus to a single homeland, and that was about it. That some, any, Humans had supported the Faunus, was something she had never heard, and she wondered briefly why her teachers had neglected to mention it.

"What else don't the White Fang like to hear?" Velvet repeated. "They don't like to hear how the Schnees routinely manumitted their slaves after five or six years of labor. They don't care to be told that the Schnees educated their slaves, even when and where it was illegal to do so. They get bent out of shape when you mention that, as war loomed, the Schnees basically let Faunus slaves who wanted to go and fight - like my grandfather - leave. Technically they were escapes, but the slaves always knew which gates would be left unlocked." Velvet chuckled, so unexpectedly that Ruby started in surprise. Velvet noticed, and leaned forward to explain.

"My grandfather and some of his friends 'escaped' from the Yellowtail Mine in Ambervylle, and joined a Faunus army that was forming across the border in Mistral. He said that the day before they were going to leave, the Mister Schnee who ran the mine confronted them, and warned them in no uncertain terms that they should not try to escape through the northwest gate, nor should they head a mile west through the woods to the railroad where a freight train bound for Mistral would stop at 10:15 p.m. because of 'mechanical problems', and that if they did escape he would be legally bound to report them to the local authorities as soon as they were missed which would probably take two or three days because, as he said, 'All you Faunus look alike to me.' "

Ruby sat back, gobsmacked, while Velvet grinned.

"The Schnees...did that?"

"And more," Velvet elaborated. "The night my grandfather escaped, when he and his companions reached the northwest gate, not only was it unlocked and unguarded, but piled against the guard shack were knapsacks, extra rations, water purification bottles, a first aid kit, a map, a compass and a watch, along with two shotguns and a pistol, and some ammunition."

"Then why?" Ruby said, bewildered. "Why turn on people who were on your side? Why did the White Fang do that?"

"Politics," Velvet answered bluntly.

"I don't understand," Ruby wailed.

"The current leaders of the White Fang want a new revolution against Humans. Revolution requires that the people be angry at the injustice and mistreatment they're suffering at the hands of their oppressors. If said oppression and mistreatment is lacking, well then, you have to create it. The Schnees as generally decent, honorable people who helped the Faunus in their time of servitude and after, are an obstacle to the goal of revolution. An obstacle that has to be removed, by any means necessary, if the revolution is to happen."

"That's insane!" Ruby exclaimed.

"It's also cynical, cold-blooded, political calculation," Velvet added. "I think that, whatever she used to believe, Blake came to the same conclusion." She gave Ruby a meaningful look. "I think that's why she's able to get along with Weiss, even though she's 'the enemy'."

"Whatever do you mean?" Ruby said, cringing slightly at how awkward she sounded.

Velvet smiled. "I'm not sure," she said, "but I suspect that Blake is a Faunus, and probably a former member of the White Fang."

"Uh..."

"Blake introduced herself to me early on," Velvet clarified. "She asked, in a very round-about way, how much of a hard time I get for being a Faunus. All very innocently, mind. She comes around to chat now and then, and she sometimes says things that make me wonder if she's hiding something under that bow she always wears."

Velvet affected not to notice the panicked look on Ruby's face. "Of course, if she is a Faunus, and doesn't want people to know, well, that's her business, and I won't pry."

A soft, familiar chime sounded throughout the library. Velvet picked up her scroll. "2:55," she noted. "I have a class at three." She gathered her things and stood up. "I'll see you later, Ruby. It was nice talking to you."

Ruby watched the bunny-eared girl walk away. Velvet had certainly answered Ruby's question, but she'd caused Ruby to think of many more.

"Now I have to find even more books," Ruby thought.


	2. Slave Quarters

Chapter Two: Slave Quarters

_In which Blake and Velvet talk about how the Schnees treat their employees._

Velvet was sitting under a tree outside the dining hall, enjoying the afternoon sun and doing a bit of reading. Her partner and teammate Yatsuhashi was dozing against the bole, an open textbook in his lap. Velvet was grateful for his presence. Not only was the rabbit eared girl quite fond of him, he also kept potential Faunus targeting bullies at bay, by virtue of his seven foot, massively muscled frame.

"Velvet?"

The softly spoken question made Velvet squeak with surprise. Once again, Blake Belladonna had walked up to her without Velvet being aware of the other girl's approach.

"Ah, Blake," Velvet gasped. "You startled me."

"Sorry," Blake apologized. "Habitual sneakiness."

"Not to worry," Velvet assured her. "Sit down," she added, patting the ground beside her.

Blake did so, folding her legs beneath her. She had a pensive air about her, and Velvet couldn't help but wonder what was troubling her raven haired friend.

"Ruby was telling me about the conversation you two had yesterday," Blake began without preamble. Her amber eyes, tilted slightly upwards at the corners, combined with the black bow she always wore to give her a catlike appearance as she started at the Faunus girl. Velvet found herself wondering, as she often did, if Blake had a second set of ears hidden away under her bow.

"What about it?" Velvet inquired politely.

"I'm just wondering," Blake began. "I mean," she hesitated. "Doesn't it bother you, as a Faunus, that the Schnee family used to own Faunus slaves? That they used to own your grandfather?"

Velvet pondered before she answered. If her suspicions were correct, and Blake was not only a fellow Faunus, but a former member of the White Fang, Velvet would have to frame her reply carefully, to avoid casting Blake as anything but a sympathetic, curious, Human.

"Well," she said, "as a present day person, looking back, it bothers me that slavery existed, period. You know, what the Hell were they thinking? But, I also know that slavery has existed since the beginning of history, that it must have existed in pre-history as well, and that everybody enslaved everybody." Blake gave her a perplexed look at the last, and Velvet clarified, "Humans enslaved Humans as well as Faunus, and Faunus enslaved Faunus as well as Humans. If slavery was a crime, then everybody was a victim, and everybody was a victimizer." Velvet gave Blake a frank look. "Your own ancestors may have been slaves at some point. In fact, I'd say it's a sure bet they were. You just don't know it."

Blake glanced away. "Oh, I know it," she said quietly. After a brief silence she reiterated her question. "So it doesn't bother you that the Schnees owned Faunus slaves?"

"It bothers me that the Schnees owned Faunus slaves," Velvet said, her tone and expression steady. "It bothers me that my grandfather was once their personal property. But, I have to balance that fact against two other facts: first, that the current Mister Schnee never owned any slaves; second, that the Schnees were incredibly kind to my grandfather, to all their slaves, and to the Faunus race in general."

"I...don't understand how you can say that," Blake admitted. She was trying, and mostly succeeding, to keep her voice even, but Velvet could hear the undercurrent of anger.

"I wouldn't want to be a slave," Velvet said. "I'm guessing you wouldn't want to be one either. But, if you had to be a slave, would you prefer a kind master, or a cruel one?"

"The Schnees aren't kind masters!" Blake snapped, before shrinking back in embarrassment. "Sorry, Velvet. I just, I feel very strongly about this, but I shouldn't yell at you."

"Apology accepted, Blake," Velvet smiled reassuringly. "Getting back to what you said, though. Why did you use the present tense? What are the Schnees doing these days that you feel is unfair?"

"Well, uh, they," Blake floundered, seemingly bewildered by Velvet's lack of dislike of the Schnee family. "They exploit Faunus labor," she said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Okay, that's a claim I just don't understand," Velvet said. Blake opened her mouth to reply, but Velvet stopped her with a raised hand. "Some Faunus activists, the White Fang, for example, complain when Humans don't hire Faunus. But then they turn around and complain when Humans do hire Faunus. It seems the Schnees are damned if they do, and damned if they don't."

"Well, obviously, hiring Faunus workers is a good thing," Blake conceded. "But the Schnees don't treat their Faunus workers fairly."

"I see," Velvet pondered. "Perhaps they pay Faunus less than Humans for the same work?"

"Uh, no, actually they don't," Blake denied reluctantly. She actually seemed embarrassed to have to admit that fact.

"So, if not in pay, how are the Schnees being unfair?"

"Their mines are unsafe," Blake offered. "Hundreds of Faunus are killed in accidents every year."

"That is a valid point," Velvet conceded. "But it's only dozens of Faunus, and it leaves out the dozens of Humans who are killed each year as well. In fact, if you look at the numbers over time, the accident rate for both races is identical." Velvet shrugged. "Dust mining is dangerous. Everyone knows that. Perhaps the accident rate could be lowered, somehow, but you can't really claim that Faunus are suffering worse than Humans, or out of proportion to their numbers."

Blake was floundering. Intellectually she knew Velvet was right. The current White Fang leadership had a tendency to cherry pick facts to suit their political views. That was one of the reasons Blake had finally quit. Emotionally, however, the Schnee family had served as a focal point for her anger at the unequal treatment the Faunus received for so long, that she couldn't easily disentangle the two.

"Well, they make their Faunus workers live in buildings that were used as slave quarters!" Blake said. "That's an insult, if nothing else."

"You've been reading White Fang propaganda, haven't you?" Velvet accused gently. She grabbed her laptop and scooted around to sit beside Blake. Working quickly, she brought up an image and showed it to Blake. "This is what you're talking about, right?" The picture on the screen was of a three story brick building with a slate roof. It was neat and tidy looking and set in a manicured lawn. There was a sign visible beside the paved walk that ran to the entrance. It clearly read 'New Slave Quarters'.

"They don't even try to hide it!" Blake fumed. "How can you ignore this?"

"This building is at the Yellowtail Mine in Ambervylle," Velvet answered. "As I'm sure you know, before the war the Regents of Ambervylle...hated...Faunus. After the war, they hated us even more, if such a thing was possible. You may also know that the Yellowtail Mine was notorious amongst us as being less a mine, and more an extermination camp." Blake nodded mutely.

"Funny thing, though," Velvet continued. "Despite sitting atop one of the richest Dust veins in all of Remnant, Yellowtail was not a big money maker for the Regents."

"Until the Schnees came along," Blake muttered darkly.

"Until the Schnees came along," Velvet nodded. "They promised the Regents a healthy, fixed proportion of the mine's gross revenue, in exchange for carte blanche to run the place as they saw fit. The Regents, being desperate for income, agreed, and the Schnee Mining Company, as it was known then, took over."

"Here's a picture of the New Slave Quarters a few months after the Schnees arrived." Velvet brought up another image. It was an old black and white photograph, of several foundations with walls just starting to go up. Faunus men swarmed the scene, some laying the brick walls, others engaged in carpentry or other tasks. A flick of Velvet's hand flipped the image to show the back of the photo. A handwritten note read, "Faunus slaves practice building trades under the watchful eyes of their teachers as they erect new housing for themselves."

Velvet gave Blake a sideways glance, then closed her eyes and began to speak as if she was reciting something. "Each building had three floors, with eight rooms per floor. Each room could house eight adult slaves in individual bunks, or a married couple and their children. Each room had a sink with running water, and its own stove for heating."

Another flick. "And this is what they replaced," she said.

Blake looked at the image. Another black and white photo, it showed ramshackle huts along muddy tracks. A few malnourished Faunus stared into the camera with dull interest; most, and there were more than Blake expected somehow, just huddled in their meager quarters, like animals in pens. Which, she reflected, was likely just what the Regents had wanted.

Flick. It was the slave quarters building again, in color, and probably taken at the same time as the first one, except this time there were people in the picture. A familiar bunny-eared girl was center front, several years younger, smiling and blushing furiously. A frail looking elderly man with rabbit ears of his own stood to her left, an arm around her shoulders. A woman in a dark suit was on the right, smiling warmly and sporting a snowflake lapel pin that marked her as a Schnee. A crowd of young men, Human and Faunus, surrounded them, and Blake had a sudden insight that they were the cause of younger Velvet's blush.

"That's me," Velvet pointed out helpfully. Blake grinned at her, and Velvet grinned back. "That's my grandfather. That's the Mistress Schnee who ran the mine." Velvet's finger touched the woman's face. "Her name was Pearl," she said sadly. "She's with the Lord now."

"The White Fang?" Blake asked softly.

"The White Fang," Velvet confirmed with a nod.

There was a brief, painful silence before Velvet shook herself and continued in a cheerier voice. "And these are the boys who wouldn't stop telling me how pretty I was," she laughed. "I think I blushed the whole time I was there."

"When was this?" Blake asked.

"Six years ago," Velvet answered.

"Your grandfather..?"

"He's with the Lord now too, waiting for the Day of Jubilee," Velvet said.

Blake decided to change the subject. "These men lived in the New Slave Quarters? They don't look unhappy," she conceded.

"The New Slave Quarters may have kept their name, but they didn't keep that function long. When the war ended and the Regents accepted the Argent Treaty, all the Faunus slaves in Ambervylle were freed," Velvet said.

"And promptly expelled," Blake added. The Regents had gone to war to cleanse all Human lands of the taint of Faunus, and in the end they'd gotten what they wanted, in their own little corner of Remnant at least. Many thousands of Faunus had perished as a result of The Expulsion, as it was known, and no small number of those who survived owed their lives to evacuation on Schnee freighters. Even the White Fang admitted that. 'They saved them so they could continue to exploit them,' was how that inconvenient fact was spun.

"Except for the ones at Yellowtail," Velvet agreed. "Carte blanche and all that."

Blake was silent. "It's ironic," Velvet continued, "that the White Fang hate the Schnees for doing business with the Regents, when the Regents hate the Schnees for siding with the Faunus against their own kind. But I digress."

Velvet's eyes went far away again. "After the war, the New Slave Quarters continued to serve as bunk houses. Later they were used as offices, class rooms, and storerooms, before being remodeled into efficiency apartments for single or unaccompanied workers." She looked at Blake. "So the Schnees _are_ housing Faunus workers in old slave quarters. It's just that a room that used to hold eight adults in wooden bunks, with a cast iron stove and a sink with a cold water tap, now shelters one person and provides a private bath, a kitchenette, and a full-sized bed that folds into the wall when it isn't being used. It's not quite the same thing."

"What was Yellowtail like when you were there? The rest of it, I mean," Blake said.

"Inside the fence," Velvet answered, "it's beautiful. Immaculate buildings, landscaped grounds. There are parks, ponds, and all kinds of fruit trees. The workers grow fresh food in little gardens, for fun, and to supplement what's brought in." Velvet paused, and her expression grew somber. "Outside the fence...is Ambervylle. Bleak, impoverished Ambervylle. There's a rail line that runs from the mine straight to the coast, with no stops along the way. Nothing else connects to it. The port is fenced off just like the mine. No Schnee employee, be they Human or Faunus, leaves Schnee property while they're in Ambervylle."

"Whose fault is that?" Blake asked. "The Schnees or the Regents?" She suspected she knew the answer, and wasn't surprised when Velvet said,

"The Regents don't allow Faunus to leave Schnee property. The Schnees' say that if the Faunus can't go, the Humans won't either." Velvet sighed. "It's too bad, especially for the local Ambervyllians, They're as poor as anyone, and would love to do business with the Schnees and the miners, Faunus or not. But they can't."

Blake sat silent. She was briefly stunned that Velvet would sympathize with the Humans of Ambervylle, and wondered, not for the first time, if Velvet was hopelessly naive. Then Blake wondered if she was the naive one for believing that a whole group of people were undeserving of compassion because of their previous misdeeds. Hadn't she blown up at Weiss Schnee for writing off the White Fang as worthy only of extermination, while clinging to her own belief that they weren't beyond saving?

"It's as if I see only the good in someone, or only the bad." Blake shook her head. "It's not that simple, of course. I know that nobody is perfect. But I still tend to see the world in black and white." She sighed, and her head drooped. Then she looked up and grinned wryly. "I'm only seventeen, and I already miss the certainty of youth."

Velvet smiled and put a hand on Blake's arm. "I know someone you could talk to about that," she said.

_A/N: Really feeling the rust of years of not writing anything. But I'm enjoying myself. Can't ask for more than that._


	3. The Brave Days of Old

_A/N: This chapter kicked my ass. This is the __fifth__ version, and its primary virtue is that it sucks less than any of the others. I had a hard time avoiding getting bogged down in details and/or going off on tangents. At least I shook off more rust. _

Chapter Three: The Brave Days of Old

_In which Blake listens to an old soldier tell a tale of his youth._

Velvet took Blake into Vale one afternoon, to a small café near the docks called Marron's Rest. It was right on the riverside, and well kept, if the exterior was any sign. A bell jingled as the girls pushed through the front door, and Blake found herself in a dimly comfortable place with booths along the walls and a counter where the patrons perched on stools.

She was surprised at the number of people present. They were mostly Faunus, merchant sailors and longshoremen by the look of them. Blake saw an old man wearing an apron come out from behind the counter. He was Human, or at least lacked any obvious Faunus traits. The short order cook working behind the counter was clearly a Faunus, as was one of the two waitresses. Were they all Faunus? Blake was curious, but didn't ask. Probably the answer would be forthcoming anyway.

"Velvet!" the old man exclaimed, greeting the Faunus girl.

"Grunca Marron!" Velvet returned with a smile. She accepted a grandfatherly hug, and kissed the old man's cheek.

"You're looking good for an old man," she teased.

"I'm feeling good for an old man," the old man replied dryly. Then, sternly, "You aren't playing hooky, are you?"

"No, sir," Velvet promised, still smiling. She was, Blake guessed, rather fond of this person, whoever he was.

"Your young man didn't come along?" the old man asked, and Velvet blushed.

"He would have," she said, "but he has an exam to study for. He told me to say hello for him, though."

The man glanced at Blake.

"This must be the friend you mentioned on the phone," he said, smiling politely.

"She is," Velvet confirmed. "Her name is Blake Belladonna. She's a first year at Beacon. Blake, this is Marron Hale. He's an old family friend, and used to work for my father..."

"...and her grandfather before that..." Marron interrupted helpfully.

"...before he 'retired' to become a restaurateur," Velvet finished without missing a beat. "He's sort of an honorary great uncle."

Blake smiled at the old man and held out her hand. "That explains the 'grunca' then," she said. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Hale."

Marron chuckled. "The pleasure is mine, Miss Belladonna," he assured her.

In deference to the old man, Velvet suggested they sit down with some cold drinks. They took seats in a booth, and the Faunus waitress brought them glasses of lemonade.

"Grunca," Velvet said, her voice taking a serious tone. "Blake and I were talking the other day about the Revolution, and slavery, and the certainty of youth. I thought it might be good for her to hear your story, if you don't mind telling it." Velvet turned to Blake and added, "Grunca Marron fought in the Revolution."

"You're a Faunus?" Blake asked directly. Might as well get the truth out now, she supposed.

Marron shook his head. "No."

Blake nodded in understanding. "You're one of the Humans that joined the Faunus Alliance." That some Humans had sided with the Faunus during the war was an oft overlooked fact that was not even mentioned in most history classes. Certainly the White Fang preferred to forget the matter entirely.

Marron shook his head again and said, with a certain frank slowness, "No."

"Oh." The word came softly out of Blake's mouth, as actual understanding set in.

"Trooper Sergeant Marron Hale, 18th Jagerstafel, Light Brigade of the Cavalry Division, Army of Northern Ambervylle, Human Confederation, at your service," Marron said with a slight formal nod of his head.

"Jagerstafel," Blake shivered slightly as she repeated the word.

"A light cavalry squadron," Marron clarified. "Our job was to reconnoiter the enemy and protect the flanks of the army. You know, scout, screen..."

"...raid, pillage," Blake finished a touch accusingly.

Marron smiled thinly. "The technical term is 'forage', but yes," he admitted.

"You were a Faunus Hunter," Blake said. There was no accusation in her voice this time, despite the swirl of emotion she felt within her. The Jagerstafel, the Hunter Squadrons, had roamed ahead of and around the Human Confederation's armies. They had, as Marron indicated, scouted the line of advance, and screened the flanks from enemy cavalry. They also ranged far and wide in hostile territory, destroying crops, burning villages, and carrying free Faunus off into slavery.

"Why did you do it?" Blake asked curiously. "Hunt Faunus, I mean. What did they ever do to you?"

"Well, first off, we didn't _hunt_ Faunus," Marron countered. "I mean, we did, in the sense of looking for them. And we did shoot them. But we didn't _eat_ them." He said the last with a kind of offended urgency that caused Blake to choke back a snort of laughter.

"As for what they did to me, personally?" Marron asked. When Blake nodded he shrugged. "Nothing. No Faunus ever raised a hand against me. Not too surprising since they were all slaves and knew what would happen to them if they did. As to why," Marron took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "I was born into Ambervylle's slave owning class. When the Faunus rebelled against Human domination, I saw it as a threat to my people and our way of life. I believed I had a right and a duty to defend both, so I did."

"But, clearly you changed your mind," Blake said, indicating Velvet with a nod of her head.

"The war changed my mind," Marron said. "Going into it, a lot of us, myself included, believed that Faunus were naturally inferior to Humans. That they were, you know," he continued, making quote marks with his fingers, "'dumb animals'." The words came out tinged with bitter remorse. Velvet laid a sympathetic hand on Marron's shoulder.

"Dumb animals don't avoid cunningly laid ambushes," Marron elaborated. "Dumb animals don't _set_ cunningly laid ambushes. Dumb animals don't go toe to toe with the finest army in the Confederation and fight it to a standstill. The Faunus did all of those things."

"How many battles were you in?" Blake asked. She was intrigued. She'd always assumed that Confederation soldiers became or remained rabid Faunus haters after losing the war. Something else she was wrong about.

"Large and small, forty-two," Marron answered. "Mostly on the periphery of things, but sometimes right in the thick of it. I was even in a couple of full scale cavalry charges."

"Which ones?" Blake inquired. "Terreplein? Asheron? Graylane?"

"You know your history," Marron said, impressed. "I missed Terreplein, rode at Asheron, and was on wagon guard for Graylane."

Blake's brow furrowed. There weren't that many major Confederation cavalry charges left to chose from, except...

"My god," she said softly, "You rode at Fort Castle."

Marron straightened. "I did," he confirmed proudly. "When Lagune's plan fell apart, and everything was going to Hell, he called on us to save the army. And we did."

Marron briefly related a tale Blake knew well. The Confederation cavalry had been held back to exploit the breakthrough General Lagune expected his infantry to create. Now they hurried forward, assembling on the left flank of their army, hidden from view by a slight rise. Their commander gave a fiery speech acknowledging the odds against them and exhorting them to fight all the harder despite the enemy's looming onset. Then the advance sounded and three thousand men on horseback started moving. Cresting the rise and seeing the enemy below them, they accelerated from a walk to a trot. The Faunus, quickly realizing what was happening, halted and turned to face them, laying down an intense fire as they did so. The surging riders broke into a gallop as Faunus weapons brought down horses and men by the hundreds. Finally, the great mass smashed into the serried ranks of infantry, scattered them, and went careening down the Faunus line until the whole right wing of the Faunus army was in chaos.

"There weren't but a handful of us left by then," Marron said. "Three thousand men set out on that charge, and only three hundred got back to our own lines. The rest were dead or prisoners. But we'd done it. The Faunus had stopped to meet our attack, and they had to stay stopped to reorganize their right flank. That gave our army enough time to escape."

Blake nodded. Faunus historians of the time referred to the Confederation cavalry charge as a desperate act of magnificent gallantry that came within a hairs breadth of not just breaking the Faunus right flank, but of turning the tide of the whole battle. She wasn't sure she agreed with the 'magnificent gallantry' part, but the rest of it was certainly true.

"Your army was defeated," Blake pointed out anyway. "Your general was captured." She was arguing to see how Marron would respond.

"Defeated, but not destroyed," Marron countered. "Lagune was no loss, and enough of the army escaped the debacle to fight another day." His expression became pensive. "I sometimes think the world would be a better place today if the army _had_ been destroyed, though. The war might have ended sooner, and the Faunus might not have had to settle for a negotiated peace."

There was an awkward silence. Blake looked at her drink. She often wished that very thing had happened, and tried to imagine the world that would have resulted from such an outcome. Her life might have been happier than it was. People she cared about who were dead now, might still be alive.

"If wishes were fishes..." she muttered.

"...we'd all swim in riches," Marron finished.

Blake looked up. "I've never really understood that saying," she confessed.

"That makes two of us," Marron smiled. Then, more seriously, "Blake, Velvet has a theory about you. I'm not going to say what it is, but she shared it with me, and based on what I've seen and heard today I think she's right. Instead, I'll say that because of things I've done, you've had a harder life than you should have, and for that, I'm sorry."

Blake felt her cheeks heat. Velvet was smiling compassionately, and Blake was suddenly uncomfortably aware of the black bow on her head.

"Mr. Hale," Blake said, reluctantly looking the old man in the eye. He smiled at her and she relaxed a bit. "Marron. You may have helped to make the world I had to grow up in, but you never oppressed me. You never spit on me, or kicked me and told me I was worthless. You just tried to do what you thought was right, and when you found out you'd been in the wrong, you tried to make amends."

Blake gave an embarrassed little shrug. "That makes two of us," she echoed. Changing the subject Blake went on, "I'm curious, though, how you got involved with Velvet's family."

"That's easy enough," Marron responded. "When the war ended I tried to go home, but my father wouldn't have me back. He'd lost everything, and blamed me for it. I went to Vacuo to try and make a new start, and that's where I met Denim Scarlatina. He offered me a job almost as soon as I stepped off the boat, still wearing my Confederation uniform, no less."

Blake gave Velvet a wondering look.

"Grandpa didn't believe in holding grudges. He said they were too heavy to carry. He also said that if there was going to be peace between the races, there had to reconciliation. He worked for that every day of his life," she explained.

"He was a great man," Marron agreed.

* * *

><p>Later, as Blake and Velvet walked back to the airship dock for the ride back to Beacon, Blake asked another question.<p>

"Velvet, how did your grandfather make enough money between escaping from slavery and the end of the war to offer Marron a job less than a year later?"

"That's easy," Velvet replied. "Remember how I told you that Grandpa 'escaped' from the Yellowtail mine to join the army?" Blake nodded. "He did become as soldier," Velvet elaborated, "and fought in several battles. But he was invalided out after getting badly wounded. When he recovered, he went back to work for the Schnees, and started a little business of his own on the side." Velvet grinned at her companion. "For an ex-slave with little formal education, Grandpa Scarlatina turned out to be a pretty shrewd operator. By the time the war ended, his little side enterprise had grown enough that he could do it full time."

"Good for him," Blake said, nodding slightly. Then, "How was he hurt?"

"He was trampled by a horse during the Confederation cavalry charge at the Battle of Fort Castle," Velvet answered, an impish grin curling the corners of her mouth.

"He wasn't," Blake protested. "Marron rode your grandfather down?"

Velvet shook her head. "He and Grandpa wondered about that, but decided it was unlikely. Grandpa said he was focused on the horse, not the rider; and Grunca Marron was too busy trying to ride as fast and far as he could to look at faces."

Blake mulled that. "And the 'grunca' bit? That's a bit much for an 'honorary' relative."

"Well, his eldest grandson _is_ married to my older sister..." Velvet elaborated.

"You have a strange family, Velvet," Blake said.

"I know," Velvet agreed. "Isn't it great?"


	4. Childhood

A/n: A much easier chapter to write.

Chapter 4: Childhood

_In which Weiss Schnee and Blake Belladonna talk about growing up Schnee, and other things as well._

Blake was engaged in her favorite pass time, reading a book while sprawled out on her bed in the room she shared with the rest of Team RWBY. Across the way Blake's fellow student, teammate, and perhaps friend Weiss Schnee was sitting on the edge of her own bed, brushing her long white hair.

The two girls had the room to themselves for the weekend, as Ruby and Yang had gone home to Patch to visit their father. The result so far was a pleasant silence, as Blake was quiet by nature, and Weiss was aloof by habit. What little had been said usually consisted of Weiss asking a short question like, "Shall we go down to breakfast?" and Blake giving a one word answer along the lines of, "Sure."

Blake glanced at her teammate. Weiss was counting her brush strokes. Quietly, out of consideration for her roommate, but Blake could make out a number here and there. It was typical of Weiss's methodical approach to life: decide what you're going to do, plan how you're going to do it, and then do it according to your plan.

A thought popped into Blake's head. She found herself wondering about how Weiss had arrived at her particular worldview. Blake still considered Weiss a spoiled rich girl, unfair as she knew the characterization to be. Nor could she forget, even though she had forgiven, Weiss's scornful and disparaging remarks about the Faunus. It was a bit of a puzzle to Blake how Weiss could be accepting of individual Faunus, but dislike the race in general.

"Weiss," Blake said. The white haired girl looked up.

"Yes, Blake?"

"I have a question I'd like to ask you," Blake said, a bit hesitantly. "It's a little personal, though, so..."

"Well, ask away," Weiss said. "If it's too personal, I just won't answer."

"Fair enough," Blake allowed with a small smile. Then, with a curious frown, she asked, "Did you know any Faunus when you were growing up? Have any Faunus friends?"

Weiss seemed surprised by the question, and scrutinized Blake with interest.

"What, like playmates or something?" she asked.

"That," Blake nodded. "Or schoolmates."

"I did," Weiss said. "I don't quite remember pre-school, just a few vague impressions. But I remember kindergarten. There were a lot of Faunus children in my class. Not too surprising given that it was one of our private mine schools. I'd say half the class was Faunus."

"You went to a mine school?" Blake was surprised. The White Fang characterized the 'schools' at Schnee mines as places where Faunus children could receive a sub-standard education. Now Blake found herself wondering how true that was, if a member of the Schnee family had attended one.

"Two of them actually," Weiss confirmed, "when my father was working as a manager at a couple of our mines in Vacuo."

"Huh," Blake mused. "I guess I never..." she paused, frowned, then continued, "Why did your family build schools at your mines anyway?"

Weiss gave a dry chuckle. "Well, first off, not all of our mines have schools. Many of our employees commute daily, and their children go to the local schools where they live." Blake nodded. Weiss went on. "But some mines are remote enough that some or all of the workforce lives on site, either with or without their families. Where there are families, there are children, and where there are children there needs to be education. So we provide schooling."

"Your father could have sent you to school in Atlas," Blake pointed out.

"Yes," Weiss agreed, "and I think he wanted to. But my grandfather insisted that my father take us with him. So he and my mother and my sister and I went to live in Vacuo, and I went to a mine school."

"What was it like?" Blake asked vaguely.

"School?" Weiss asked, a bit confused. "It was like...school. Classes. Activities. Recess."

"I mean, what was it like going to school with ordinary people?" Blake clarified.

"Uh, I, I'm not sure how to answer that," Weiss floundered. "When I was five I didn't think of myself as being special just because my last name is Schnee."

"That took a while?" Blake teased, and Weiss smiled.

"It did," she conceded. Then her expression turned thoughtful. "Only a few people ever called my father anything but 'Mister Schnee', and my mother was always 'Mistress Schnee'. But a lot of adults, especially the older Faunus, would call Winter and I 'Mistress Schnee' as well. It was...weird, when I first became aware of it. I eventually learned it was an old-fashioned form of address. My grandfather said they were just being polite, and that I shouldn't make too much of it."

Blake bit her lower lip and frowned thoughtfully. "Weiss," she finally said, hesitantly, "I'm not sure how to phrase this, just please believe that I'm not trying to insult you, but, if you had Faunus friends growing up, what turned you against us?"

Weiss's face tightened into a not-quite-scowl, and her blue eyes glittered frostily. Then she took a slow, deep breath, exhaled, and relaxed a bit.

"Awkward phrasing forgiven," she said. Then, "I'm not against all of you. I know I sound that way sometimes, and I'm sorry for that. I'm only against the Faunus of the White Fang. You remember the night of our little argument, when your secret came out?"

One of Blake's hands went instinctively to the bow atop her head, the bow that kept her cat-like second set of ears hidden from view.

"I don't think I'll ever forget 'our little argument'," she said with a rueful grin.

"You'll recall then that I said members of my family had been murdered. It started when I was ten. The White Fang put a bomb in my Uncle Grau's car. They killed him, his wife, their daughter, and their unborn son. Then they laughed, and said it was a great day for the Faunus race, since there were four fewer Schnees in the world." Weiss's voice trembled with suppressed anger.

Blake winced in sympathy. "I remember hearing about it," she related. "Some of us said that a mighty blow had been struck against our oppressors. Others weren't so sure, and many feared that the consequences would be terrible."

"They were terrible," Weiss said softly. "My grandfather was devastated. My father was furious. My older relatives all felt horribly betrayed, I suppose, and they were all angry. Still, they mostly kept their heads. Tens of thousands of people turned out for my uncle's funeral procession, and half of them were Faunus, loyal Schnee employees who were just as upset as we were."

"That was when your grandfather denounced the White Fang and declared war on the faction that had murdered his son, right?" Blake asked.

"Renounced, but yes." At Blake's quizzical look Weiss laughed bitterly. "He'd been a member of the White Fang, you know, and supported it financially. We were all members, even me." Weiss gave Blake a challenging looking, as if to say 'what do you think of that?'. Then her expression softened. "Peace and reconciliation between the races was my grandfather's dream. Tearing up his membership card and throwing the pieces on the ground hurt him terribly. Seeing thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of our employees do the same didn't make him feel any better."

"It killed him, you know. That's what I think, anyway. Grandfather only lived a couple more years, and every time we'd 'win' a battle, he seemed to die a little more inside."

"It changed my father. I told you I had a difficult childhood, but that wasn't always the case. Father had always been strict and demanding, but in a supportive way. He'd say, 'That was very good, Weiss, but I'll bet you can do better.' After Uncle Grau was killed, as we lost more and more people to the White Fang, it became, 'That wasn't good enough, Weiss, you have to do better.'"

"Winter handled the change better than I did. That's why she's still in Atlas, working at our World Headquarters, and why I'm here. I just had to get away."

Weiss sighed and slumped, her head dropping forward. Blake hesitated, then moved to sit beside the white haired girl and put a sympathetic hand on her shoulder.

"Would you tell me what you remember about the war? I'd like to hear your point of view, if you don't mind sharing it," Blake said.

Weiss took another deep breath and began to speak.

"At first, we fought in the courts. Grandfather used our security service, and our money, to gather evidence we could turn over to the public authorities of the various lands and kingdoms, so they could put White Fang members, especially leaders, in jail."

"That tactic didn't last," Blake said. It was a simple statement of fact.

"Father advocated a...more aggressive...approach," Weiss admitted. "He and Grandfather argued about it more than once. Grandfather didn't want to stoop to their level, but after the White Fang blew up a bus full of our employees just because one of us was on it also, he agreed to let Father try his way."

Blake shivered. She knew the incident Weiss was referring to. It happened in Mistral, which was irrelevant, and had been incredibly sloppily planned, which was very relevant. Some genius (or geniuses, the details were murky) had decided to kill a Schnee by putting a bomb on the bus the man rode to and from work each day. All well and good, but instead of finding out if the Schnee in question had a favorite seat and putting a small bomb there, the plotters decided it was easier to use a big bomb and take out the whole bus. Additionally, for reasons again unknown, they chose to detonate their bomb when the bus was right outside the main gate of the Schnee mine. In other words when it was full. There had been eighty-three people on the bus, Human and Faunus. Seventy-nine of them died, as did twenty-two bystanders. The faction responsible had issued a statement regretting only the Faunus casualties and crowing gleefully over getting another Schnee. The Schnee Dust Company had responded with nine words.

"_We_ will find you. _We_ will make you pay." Weiss said the words like she had been reading Blake's mind. "And we did find them. A week or so later, when the smell got bad enough, the local police found them too." She looked at Blake, her expression a mix of smug satisfaction and regret. "Father called it our first real victory against the White Fang."

"A whole cell wiped out," Blake said. "Eleven Faunus, eleven _people_," she corrected herself, "killed." She didn't mention that the Schnees must have found evidence that lead them to other cells, or that the events which followed were known as the Mistral Massacre in the White Fang.

"They deserved it," Weiss said coldly. "We should have let the Mistral Police deal with them, though. The end result would have been the same, and we wouldn't have stained our name with extrajudicial killings."

"I thought your family liked to exempt itself from the law," Blake said, regretting the words even as they left her mouth. "Sorry! Sorry!" she backpedaled, as Weiss gave her a truly icy glare. "I just mean, exempting the SDC from local laws seems to be a thing with you."

"Extraterritoriality," Weiss growled, "which we _do_ write in to all of our contracts with governments, allows us to ignore stupid laws, like those that discriminate against Faunus. It doesn't mean we go around breaking any law we feel like, just because we can."

"I'm sorry," Blake repeated. "Growing up in the White Fang, I guess you could say that I was indoctrinated in a particular world view, which reasserts itself once in a while."

Weiss surprised Blake by smiling a small, but understanding smile. "Indoctrinating children in a particular world view is what parents do," she said. The smile left her lips, and her expression darkened. "What happened in Mistral was the start of our journey into darkness, as far as I'm concerned. My father says it's just a case of fighting fire with fire, but I think we gave up our claim to the moral high ground when we started using the White Fang's own tactics against them."

"What did your grandfather think?" Blake asked.

"He called it 'paying evil unto evil'. He also said that destroying evil didn't automatically create good, and just because my father's approach was working, didn't mean it was the best possible way of dealing with the problem."

Blake folded her hands in her lap and frowned thoughtfully. "I'd say they both had a point," she said, her voice quiet. "From what I remember, the people who'd advocated using deadly force were extremely unpleasantly surprised when your family fought back. The organization had been losing membership for a while, as pacifistic people left the ranks, or were driven out, but the SDC counter-attacks made them leave in droves. My parents, for example. But it also had the effect of fanaticizing those of us who remained." Blake glanced at Weiss, who was staring at her with a look on her face that clearly said, 'You're a fanatic?'

Blake laughed self deprecatingly. "I became willing to take part in activities I wouldn't have before. Sabotage. Theft. That sort of thing."

"No killing?" Weiss asked.

Blake shook her head. "I helped plant a few bombs," she admitted, "but only when I was sure no people, be they Faunus or Human, would be hurt. I wasn't entirely lucky in that regard; a couple of people were hurt anyway. But no one died."

It was Weiss's turn to frown thoughtfully. "You left the White Fang because you didn't approve of their use of indiscriminate violence. Does that mean we're winning?"

Blake blinked. "Are you pumping me for information?" she asked, suspicion coloring her words.

"No, not exactly," Weiss said. "One of the things that makes my father furious is his inability to extinguish the White Fang. Somehow they keep getting new members, enough to maintain their ranks. He doesn't understand it."

"You can always find people who are unhappy with things as they are," Blake said slowly. "Within that set, you can always find people who are willing to believe that others are responsible for their misfortunes. Hell, you can always find people who _want_ to believe." Her eyes were distant and haunted. "I learned how to blame your family and your race for anything and everything, so I could bring the 'I want to believe' types into the organization. My mentor taught me that. He could twist anything into a recruiting tool, and he wasn't above sending our own people to their deaths just so he could have more martyrs to propagandize about."

Weiss looked horrified. Her mind did a quick game of connect the dots, and realized that Blake had recruited people into the White Fang, using methods she now considered morally suspect, that some of those people had died, and that she blamed herself.

"Blake, I...I don't know what to say," Weiss said. Blake sniffed and bit her lips as if she was fighting the urge to cry. Her eyes were glistening with tears. Weiss put an arm around Blake's shoulders and drew her into a gentle hug. "I don't know what to say," she repeated softly.

They sat like that for a few moments. Then Blake drew back, wiped her eyes, sniffed again and smiled. "Sorry about that," she said.

Weiss wordlessly produced a tissue, and Blake blew her nose. "Thanks."

The two girls sat in silence for a bit.

"If we can be friends," Weiss said eventually, "Then there's hope for the future."

"_If_ we can be friends," Blake repeated. "You're my teammate and I trust you, but I don't know if we're friends." The words came out reluctantly.

Weiss considered that, then said, "Would you let a friend brush your hair?"

"Well, sure, I suppose," Blake said, sounding a bit baffled.

"Then turn around," Weiss said, accentuating the words with a gesture.

Somewhat to her surprise Blake found herself obeying, and felt Weiss's fingers and brush go to work on her long black locks. It had been a long time since someone else had brushed her hair, and Blake found she'd forgotten how nice it felt.

For a while Blake just relaxed and enjoyed it, but her mind soon wandered, and she found herself returning to something Weiss had said about her father.

"Hmph." Weiss stopped brushing, apparently puzzled at how to work around Blake's bow. The dark haired girl reached up and removed it. After a moment, Weiss resumed her grooming, taking care to avoid Blake's cat ears.

"Weiss."

"Yes, Blake?"

"Would it ever be possible for me to meet your father? I'm kind of curious about him."

Weiss paused her brushing once more, thought briefly, then started brushing again.

"I don't see why not," she said. "Maybe at the end of the term we could all go to Atlas. I kind of want to introduce you all to my parents, if only to prove that I'm not wasting my time here."

"Well, I'd be happy to help you with that," Blake said, feeling herself grin slightly.

"You would?" Weiss asked, perhaps a bit surprised.

"Sure," Blake confirmed impishly. "What are friends for?"


End file.
